Fifteen telecommunication companies -- mostly affiliates of CenturyLink Communications -- and the Arkansas Cable Telecommunications Association have asked the state Public Service Commission for a rehearing on utility pole attachment rules.
The firms claimed that the rules in a commission order issued last month included a pole attachment rate formula that "will result in a windfall of revenues for electric interests to the detriment of broadband, telecommunications, wireless and cable attachers and their customers."
The commission's rules also adopt burdensome operational requirements on businesses that attach lines to poles primarily owned by electric utilities, said the applications for rehearing filed on Friday.
The formula to figure what the attaching entity has to pay the pole owner is very complicated, said one expert familiar with the issue who asked not to be identified.
When a bill was introduced at the end of last year's legislative session, a compromise was reached that the PSC would decide the pole attachment issue, said Kirkley Thomas, vice president of governmental affairs for the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas.
"Now the Public Service Commission has ruled," Thomas said Tuesday. "And the Public Service Commission's main priority is to look out for the best interests of the [residents] of Arkansas. Yet the telecoms are saying, 'We still don't like it, we still don't agree.'"
The telecommunication companies and cable companies pay a nominal fee to attach their lines to the electric company poles, Thomas said.
"That saves them a lot of money from having to buy their own poles, paying the transportation and labor costs to set their own poles and build their own infrastructure out," Thomas said. "And yet they want to get onto our private property for next to nothing."
The commission heard arguments on the case in October.
It isn't unusual for parties to seek a rehearing before the commission, although the number of parties seeking this rehearing is a little unusual, said John Bethel, executive director of the commission's general staff.
Others that are part of the case, including electric companies, the commission's general staff and the attorney general's office, have until next week to respond to the request for rehearing, Bethel said.
The commission has until late August to determine whether it will grant the rehearing, Bethel said.
"It's not uncommon for the commission to grant a rehearing," Bethel said. "But it's also not uncommon for the commission to deny it."
There wouldn't be a total rehearing of the case if the PSC grants it, but it would be only a rehearing of the issues that were identified, Bethel said.
If the commission denies the request for a rehearing, it is possible that the telecommunication companies could appeal the decision to the courts, the expert familiar with the issue said.
Business on 07/27/2016